How to Get a Better Credit Rating

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Bill Rae, I'm with Alumni Financial Services out of Seminole, Florida and I've been in the business in the finance world for well over twenty five years. The question you are asking is how do you get a better credit rating. Well that's a fairly easy question to answer if you want good credit or better credit then you need to make sure whatever obligations you make you pay them as you promise. That's the best way to get good credit scores. Now if we are talking about perhaps you are just starting off and you are looking at how do I get my credit rating up, understand that there are three major companies that track all the credit in United States. So if you haven't done so ask for a report from all three of them. You are entitled to get this free once a year or anytime you are turned down. Once you have them look for any discrepancies that you don't recognize or might be an error. That's the place to get started. Now if you have credit what they are looking for in a good credit is you should have four lines of credit open. Don't necessarily mean you got to run them up to the limit, but if you have four good types of credit then that's going to help your scores stay high also. Make sure your outstanding debt is within reason. And what I mean by that is if you have a line of credit for say ten or fifteen thousand dollars, make sure you don't owe ten or fifteen thousand. It's ok to owe three to four thousand but try to stay under sixty percent, that will help. Then continue to make your payments on time, that's always a good one. And oh by the way, if you've ever heard if you are not using credit cards close them or cancel them not wise if you had good history behind them. They may not be usable, other then when they are looked at it does show that you've had good history in the past. So throw them in the drawer, let them expire on their own but don't be in a hurry to cancel cause that could ding you also. And never go running around taking inquiries cause they are giving you a free towel or toaster or whatever. Remember the more inquiries you have in a short period of time, the more that's going to affect your credit. So if someone is going to run your credit make sure you want them to and the reason is good. My name is Bill Rae I'm with Alumni Financial services and as always we are here to help you build true wealth."